Biblical worship is the full-life response to who God is and what He has done.
False worship is the full-life commitment to created things over the Creator.
“The gods hated humans so much that they invented work as a way to punish them.”
Homer
…when we were with you, this is what we commanded you: “If anyone isn’t willing to work, he should not eat.”
2 Thessalonians 3:10
In fact, you are doing this toward all the brothers and sisters in the entire region of Macedonia. But we encourage you, brothers and sisters, to do this even more, to seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, so that you may behave properly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone.
1 Thessalonians 4:10-12
Now we command you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from every brother or sister who is idle and does not live according to the tradition received from us. For you yourselves know how you should imitate us: We were not idle among you; we did not eat anyone’s food free of charge; instead, we labored and toiled, working night and day, so that we would not be a burden to any of you. It is not that we don’t have the right to support, but we did it to make ourselves an example to you so that you would imitate us.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-9
In fact, when we were with you, this is what we commanded you: “If anyone isn’t willing to work, he should not eat.” For we hear that there are some among you who are idle. They are not busy but busybodies. Now we command and exhort such people by the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and provide for themselves. But as for you, brothers and sisters, do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take note of that person; don’t associate with him, so that he may be ashamed.
2 Thessalonians 3:10-14
Yet don’t consider him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.
2 Thessalonians 3:15
A slacker’s craving will kill him because his hands refuse to work.
Proverbs 21:25
False worship is the full-life commitment to created things over the Creator.
In vain you get up early and stay up late, working hard to have enough food — yes, he gives sleep to the one he loves.
Psalm 127:2
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: You are to labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. You must not do any work — you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your city gates. For the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.
Exodus 20:8-11
While he is out in society saving humanity at a work pace of eighty to a hundred hours a week, he is selfishly ignoring his wife and children. He helps mankind partially out of love and compassion, but mostly as an unconscious compensation for his insecurity…He is self-critical and deep within himself feels inferior. He spends the bulk of his life working at a frantic pace to prove to himself that he is really not (as he suspects deep within) a nobody. In his own eyes, and in the eyes of society, he is the epitome of human dedication…He becomes angry when his wife and children place demands on him. He can’t understand how they could have the nerve to call such an unselfish, dedicated servant a selfish husband and father…In reality, his wife and children are correct, and they are suffering severely because of his subtle selfishness.
Minirth & Meier
And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.”
Genesis 3:17-19
The LORD God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it.
Genesis 2:15
The earth was given to man, with this condition, that he should occupy himself in its cultivation. Whence it follows that men were created to employ themselves in some work, and not to lie down in inactivity and idleness. This labor, truly, was pleasant, and full of delight, entirely exempt from all trouble and weariness. Nothing is more contrary to the order of nature, than to consume life in eating, drinking, and sleeping, while in the meantime we propose nothing to ourselves to do.
John Calvin
Man goes out to his work and to his labor until evening. How countless are your works, LORD! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
Psalm 104:23-24
This too is a sickening tragedy: exactly as he comes, so he will go. What does the one gain who struggles for the wind? What is more, he eats in darkness all his days, with much frustration, sickness, and anger. Here is what I have seen to be good: It is appropriate to eat, drink, and experience good in all the labor one does under the sun during the few days of his life God has given him, because that is his reward. Furthermore, everyone to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also allowed him to enjoy them, take his reward, and rejoice in his labor. This is a gift of God, for he does not often consider the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with the joy of his heart.
Ecclesiastes 5:16-20
“The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays—not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps but because God loves clean floors.”
Martin Luther
